


One Last Leap

by Redrikki



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Chromatic Yuletide, Family Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 07:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21798805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: Telling his parents he's Spider-Man is a leap of faith Miles can't bring himself to take.
Relationships: Aaron Davis & Miles Morales, Jefferson Davis & Miles Morales & Rio Morales, Miles Morales & May Parker (Spider-Man)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 277
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 10, Yuletide 2019





	One Last Leap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [victoria_p (musesfool)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/gifts).

> Thanks to my mom for beta reading. Way to help me keep with the theme.

It was so weird watching himself on tv. It was even weirder watching himself on tv sandwiched between his parents who could not stop making little noises of horror and disapproval. On the screen, Spider-Man delivered a swinging kick to a goon’s chest. The guy had been built like a mountain and Miles still managed to send him flying. He was getting good at this superhero stuff. 

Too bad not everyone seemed to agree. “Ay dios mío,” Mom moaned, clutching her cross like a prayer, “he’s so small.”

“What? No. I’m—Spider-Man’s not short.” Just because he wasn’t a giant like Dad didn’t make him small. Miles was a perfectly respectable height for his age and growing all the time. Just the other day, May had been talking about letting the hems out on his super-suit. 

“I met him, Miles,” Dad said tiredly, rubbing his forehead. The flickering light from the TV gave his brown skin a grayish cast that made him look impossibly old. “He’s a kid.” He shook his head. “Just like the last one.”

Miles shot him an incredulous look. Okay, yeah, _he_ was a kid, but the the last one? “Peter was twenty-six!” He hadn’t been old-Peter old, but he’d been old enough to have a wife and a job and ten years experience like a full on adult. 

“And look how he turned out,” Dad said darkly.

On the TV, one of the bad guys managed a lucky shot that sent Spider-Man careening into a wall. Miles winced watching it. Did they have show that on the news? He looked like an idiot. He got back up, he always got back up, but of course they didn’t show that. 

Mom seized his hand and squeezed hard enough to make his bones creak. “His parents must be so worried.”

Yeah, they were, and they didn’t even know it was him. The commercial break could not come soon enough.

* * *

Miles sucked in a sharp breath as May pulled the needle through his skin. He sat with his left arm stretched up over his head and the super-suit pulled down to his waist as she stitched the gash that ran across his ribs. He couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid, getting tagged like that. If there was one thing the Peter of this world had taught him, it was that superpowers didn’t make you immortal. He should have learned the lesson, but instead he’d let the bad guy get in close and hadn’t even noticed the knife until it was skimming along his ribs. 

The worst thing was, his dad had been there. From the look on his face, you’d have though he was the one getting stabbed. He’d actually reached out towards Miles. It had taken everything Miles had not to just run into his arms. Instead, he’d made himself come here. He was starting to regret it with each stab of the needle. 

Once, his mom had given him stitches after he’d split open his chin on the coffee table. Her hands had been steady and gentle. She’d kept up a steady stream of encouragement as she worked so he wouldn’t freak out. May was competent, if a little…brusque. She worked with an impatient frown, jabbing and jerking, jabbing and jerking, over and over. All Miles could do was close his eyes and grit his teeth. 

“Not that I’m complaining,” she said as she tied off the last of the stitches, “but don’t you have someone a little closer to home who can do this?” She snipped off the thread. “Brooklyn to Queens is a long way to bleed.”

Miles groaned as May pressed a bandage to his side. “I can’t tell my Mom. She’d freak. Dad would ground me for life. And Uncle Aaron would—” Uncle Aaron would die. Uncle Aaron did die. In his arms. Like, a few blocks from here. He couldn’t do that again! Not with his parents.

“Peter hadn’t wanted to tell me either,” May said dryly as she taped the bandage in place.

“Then how did you find out?” Miles gingerly lowered his arm. The local anesthetic she’d give him was starting to wear off and his whole left side seemed to throb and burn. 

“Oh, only in the worse possible way.” May started to collect the bloody wipes she’d used to clean him up. “I came home to find him passed out in a puddle of blood.” Her lips twisted into a wry, humorless smile. “He thought I’d try to make him stop.”

“Did you?”

May raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly around the secret underground lair she’d built in her backyard. Okay, yeah. Dumb question. Between her mechanical engineering and Peter’s chemical engineering, they’d managed to make Spider-Man some pretty amazing stuff. There were a dozen super-suits with all sorts of wild features. A jeep. A plane. A motorcycle. Not to mention the sweet chemistry set-up and super-computer. Even if his parents were okay with Miles being Spider-Man, and that was a big if, there was no way they could ever make him anything this cool.

Miles shook his head. “I can’t tell them. I can’t.”

“It’s your call.” May didn’t sound very happy about it, but he didn’t think she’d squeal on him. “Just don’t make them find out the way I did. Don’t do that to them. Here.” She thrust a stack of Peter’s old clothes at him. “You can’t leave wearing that. Get changed and I’ll take you home.” 

Miles hesitated a second before accepting the clothing. It was just jeans and a hoody, but it felt weird wearing it. He wore Peter’s super-suit all the time, but this was like he’d gone through the guy’s closet or something. Whatever. May was right. It wasn’t like he could go home wearing a bloody super-suit. 

“To school,” Miles reminded them both as he climbed into the hoody and zipped it up. It was Wednesday. He didn’t get to go home until Friday. From the look of the suit, he probably wouldn’t get to wear it again until then either. Forget letting the hems out, it would need a whole lot of work. Between the damage from the knife and the dried and flaking blood, it was pretty much unwearable. The hoody came almost to his knees. He shucked the super-suit the rest of the way off and pulled on the pants. 

“Alright,” May sighed. She picked up the suit and studied it with a frown before setting it down on a nearby table. It left rusty stains on her hands. “To school then.”

* * *

The six o’clock evening news played in the background as Miles set the table for Friday night dinner. At the stove, Mom flipped the last of the tostones and turned off the heat on the bistec encebollao. The whole apartment smelled like a delicious mix of onions and fried plantains. Miles’s mouth watered. After a week of bland cafeteria food, he was more than ready to have something with some actual flavor. All they needed was for Dad to come home and they could eat.

Miles’s stitches pulled as he leaned across the table to put a fork at Dad’s place. The wound was pretty much healed at this point, but the self-dissolving stitches had been calibrated to Peter’s super-healing, not Miles’s. Someday, when he knew a little more about chemistry, he’d have to tweak the formula. In the meantime, he’d just have to remember not to be stupid enough to get himself stabbed.

The breaking news fanfare on the tv interrupted his thoughts. His attention snapped to the screen. Did he need to suit up?

“We are receiving reports of a man in rhinoceros armor rampaging near the Brooklyn Navy Yard,” the male anchor said, tapping his earpiece. “We go now to Maria Bustamonte, our reporter on the scene. Maria, what’s happening?”

The station cut to a young Filipina reporter standing on a street near the Navy Yard Wegman’s. The lights from police cars flashed in the distance behind her. “Thanks, D’Shawn,” she said. “As you can see, the police have cordoned off the area and are attempting to—” Screams interrupted her. She turned back see what the commotion was just as a squad car came hurdling at the camera. The screen cut back to the anchors’ worried faces as they lost the feed.

Silverware slipped from Miles’s nerveless fingers.

“Madre de dios!” Mom gasped just as her cellphone rang.

Miles took advantage of the distraction to bolt for his room. May still had his super-suit, but he had his web shooters and the costume he’d bought for Peter’s funeral. He dug frantically through his drawers until he found it. It fit even worse than it had last time and the mask smelled nasty as hell. Guess Peter was on to something when it came to disinfecting the mask after all. Oh, well. He crammed it on and threw open his window. He wasn’t going to let looking like a stinky loser stop him when lives were on the line.

“Miles?” Mom called as she barged into his bedroom. “That was your Dad. He’s stuck on scene and—” She broke off, her eyes widening. “Miles, what’s going on?” She stumbled back against the door frame, her hand pressed to her chest. “Papá, are you—are you _Spider-Man_?”

This was bad. It wasn’t finding-him-in-a-puddle-of-blood bad, but it was still really not good. He should say something. He needed to say something. Instead, Miles did the one thing no Morales should ever do. He ran.

* * *

Miles really wished he’d had a chance to eat before he’d run off the save the day. By the time he got home nearly two hours later, he was hungry enough to eat a rhino. Not the one he’s just fought, obviously, but a real one, endangered species status be damned. It had just been a really long week. He crawled through his window sore and starving and—

Mom sat on his bed with her phone in her hand. The local news’ jingle played for a second before she turned off the app. She must have been watching the whole thing on their livestream. Miles mentally reviewed the fight. Yeah, he’d taken a few hard knocks, but he’d gotten up and kicked ass in the end. It had been pretty typical Spider-Man stuff, really. Nothing that would justify the pinched look on Mom’s face.

“You’re Spider-Man,” she said quietly. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t an accusation. It just was and he didn’t know what to make of it.

“Yeah.” Miles tugged the mask off and tossed it aside. “I’m Spider-Man. I—” He trailed off, unsure what to say. I’m sorry? I’m not sorry? I’m not stopping? He wished he’d asked May what Peter had said after she’d found out. 

She might as well have been wearing a mask of her own for all Mom’s face gave her away. Was she mad? Disappointed? Scared? Mom had always liked Spider-Man more than Dad did, but that wasn’t making this conversation any easier.

“Mijo, why didn’t you tell us?” She frowned. “Is it because of your father?”

He shrugged. “A little. And Uncle Aaron.”

“Aaron? What’s he got to do with it?”

“He was there when I got bit. He tried to—” His eyes began to burn. “I was there when he—” Miles broke off, too choked up to continue. Uncle Aaron had died for him. He’d been the reason Miles was in danger in the first place, but he’d given everything to protect him. Months later, Miles still didn’t know how he was supposed to process that.

Mom’s face crumpled. “Miles,” she whispered. She opened her arms and Miles collapsed into them. 

He told her all of it. The painting in the subway tunnel. Peter. The other Peter. Alchemax. Gwen. Uncle Aaron and the fight at May’s. The showdown at the collider. It all came pouring out of him on a wave of tears and snot. He’d shared parts of the story with May and the other Spiders, but it felt good to get the whole thing out, like throwing up after a whole day of being nauseous. He hadn’t even realized how much he’d needed this.

“You have been so brave,” Mom said as he wound down. She pressed a kiss to his temple and he couldn’t help but lean into it. 

Eventually, he pulled back to scrub the wetness from his cheeks and there was Dad in the doorway with tear tracks of his own. “Dad!” he yelped.

Mom turned to look. “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough.” Dad sank down beside her on the bed. He looked lost, like he had at Aaron’s funeral. “Our son is Spider-Man.” He shook his head.

“Are you mad?” Miles made himself ask even as his stomach sank. Just how grounded was he? This wasn’t just throwing up a few tags and Dad had never been a fan of vigilantes. 

Dad hesitated. “What you’re doing is illegal—”

“Jeff.” Mom shot him a warning look. 

“It’s illegal,” he continued like he’d somehow missed the threat of an eternity on the couch, “but a lot of good people might have gotten hurt if you hadn’t stepped in tonight and we’d all be dead if you hadn’t shut down the collider.”

That almost sounding approving. Approving-ish. Miles raised his chin. “You gonna make me stop?”

“Can we?” Dad chuckled wetly, pushing his glasses up to rub at his eyes. “I know you’re still tagging.”

Mom laid a quelling hand on Dad’s arm and squeezed until he shut his mouth. “What your father is _trying_ to say is that we won’t stop you as long as you agree to follow some ground rules. No spidering on school nights unless it’s an emergency and you _always_ have to check in.”

Miles nodded hurriedly. This was not how he’d thought this conversation would go. He’d take ground rules over grounding any day of the week. Maybe in a few years, he could talk them round to building him an underground lair, but for now he was more than happy to settle for this. 

“And you have to keep your grades up,” Dad was quick to add. His expression softened. “You know we’re proud of you, right?”

“Yeah,” Miles said hoarsely, “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fills my hurt/comfort bingo square for minor injuries.


End file.
